


This will not be your legacy

by imsfire



Series: Jyn Week 2018 Prompts [7]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Breastfeeding, Feels, Fix-It, Gen, Hope, Jyn POV, Maternal love, Parental Love, adjusting to peacetime, happiness, tired and slightly confused thoughts of new parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 19:56:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14776250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imsfire/pseuds/imsfire
Summary: Awake at 4am feeding her son, Jyn reflects on her desire to make sure the past does not harm him.





	This will not be your legacy

**Author's Note:**

> For the final day of Jyn Appreciation Week 2018, prompt; Legacy.  
> Set in the same 'verse as the earlier "Watchful and blessed" and "Hope is a child who will live and thrive".

The thin, soft sound woke her immediately; the first hiccoughing chirps of crying, coming from the baby monitor.  Esper had woken up.  Jyn rolled over and picked up her chrono from the nightstand.  Fourth hour.  Beside her, Cassian stirred and began pushing himself up on his elbows, muttering dopily.  Something about helping.  Jyn pushed him back.

“Shh, no, you’re good.  You did the bottle feed at first hour.  This one’s my turn.  You go back to sleep, sweetheart.”

She kissed his bare shoulder as he slumped back down on his belly with a small _oof_ of acceptance.  He was asleep again within seconds.

Esperanz was beginning to grizzle a bit more; she turned the volume down and swung her feet out of the bed. 

Thanks to Cassian taking the first night feed, she’d had five, almost six good hours’ rest.  She felt pretty alert for someone who’d just been woken at four am.  She pushed herself up, stretching her back and rolling her shoulders, and padded across the room, barefoot in the semi-darkness, to the door of the nursery.

The heavy padded chair Kay had customised for her from the pilot seat of a downed TIE was next to the crib and Jyn twisted it round and flopped down in it, pulling her pyjama top off over her head.  Her breasts felt heavy, almost hot with milk.  Esperanz whined and thrashed his little fists in the air as she bent and lifted him, but he quieted at the feeling of her bare skin warm against his body, her heartbeat wrapping itself round him again in the dim light as she held him close.

“Shh, shh, little man, here I am, mama’s here.”

Her son mumbled at the nipple for a moment as usual, staring up at her, his expression almost surprised; then he latched on and started to suckle enthusiastically.

“There you go.  Plenty to go round.”

Which was an idiotic thing to say, really, since there was only one baby, not a queue of them expecting a share each.  The hells, she was getting sleepy again already.  The comfortable chair, the low light, the warm body snug against the curve of her belly.  Who cared if she talked rubbish in a whisper at this hour, so long as she was there?

Plenty to go round.  It had been one of Saw’s phrases, handing out rations, reminding everyone in his backhanded way not to take more than they needed. 

The big dark eyes that were the centre of her galaxy gazed up at her, and Esper’s tiny hands relaxed, and then curled up again, flexing in pleasure.  Jyn stroked her son’s shock of wild dark hair slowly.

“There you go, there you are, it’s okay, sweet chick, shh.  Mama’s here.  Papa’s here.  You’re here.  You’re safe.  Shh…”

She was talking as much to herself as to the baby, really.  Tiredness creeping in and relaxing her into a curl of softness, cradling him and whispering.

There was a pattering of rain on the roof; one of the seasonal night storms passing through.  When Jyn glanced at the window she could see flashes of lighting, blue-white and delicately beautiful, over the sea.  Distant thunder came muttering in its wake and Jyn disciplined herself not to stir.  There was a time a light like that would have meant battle, star-shells exploding overhead, a night-time ground assault underway and no sign yet of an end to this, ever, ever...  Now it could mean this, sitting half-asleep in this quiet room while the rain fell outside, looking down in the half-light at her son’s little red mouth suckling, at the tilt of his nose, his precious hands.  His father’s deep, tender eyes renewed in him, so young and so ready to learn and to love.

The rainfall was getting steadier, settling-in for a good long spell.  The lightning flickered again, thunder drawing itself after like heavy furniture in the sky; but the heart of the thunderstorm stayed off the coast, out at sea, though Jyn could imagine the rain teeming down now on their little settlement, dripping off eaves and soaking all the gardens, making little streams that would run down the sloping streets and empty into the bay.

Thunderstorms on Lah’mu were always inland, great cracks of noise and blasts of sheet lightning above the mountains, making her squeal with delighted terror in her father’s arms.   Mama coming in from outside, soaked and jubilant, to say the cistern was filling and all the filtration tanks flowing freely.  It was raining the day it all ended, their happiness on Lah’mu, but small and quiet, not a storm.  The only thunder had been the ship, and the crack of the guns.

She stroked her fingers through Esper’s hair again.

“They will never come for you,” she murmured to him. “The war is over, it’s all over, we’re free and we’re building everything new.  Esperanz, Esperanz, my precious perfect little one, I promise you.”

_Saw divvying-up portions of bread.  All of us child soldiers, all over the galaxy.  Mama and Papa, trying to farm, trying to live, and dying in the rain.  All my lost friends, and all those wounded in themselves, and every grief and loss and every long slog and head-down shit-scared struggle that every one of us endured.  This will not be your legacy._

_I promise you.  Everything we did, everything we lived through, was to give you this.  Hope, a home, a life, a future.  We did terrible things, lost everything, endured what seemed unendurable.  Your grandparents gave their lives, your papa and I suffered all that we did, lived through the impossible, to give you this._

_You and the other children of the peace._

_I promise you, the legacy of all that pain will never be visited on you.  It was all done for love, it was all done in hope, even when we had nothing else we could still say One day other kids won’t have to go through this._

_Only love and hope will come down to you._

A last murmur of thunder, very far off.  She looked back through the open doorway, at the shadowy form asleep in the bed there, snoring very softly.  Esperanz wriggled in her arms for a moment and then settled again.

“Shh, my dearest.  Mama’s here.  Papa’s here.  I promise.”


End file.
